Suburbs brace for medical pot sales, patients wait for state to approve it

Colorado has legalized medical marijuana and it has found some opportunities and consequences that arise from the legal sales of a long-banned drug. (Anthony Souffle, Chicago Tribune)

Colorado has legalized medical marijuana and it has found some opportunities and consequences that arise from the legal sales of a long-banned drug. (Anthony Souffle, Chicago Tribune)

Robert McCoppin, Chicago Tribune reporter

Local leaders in far northwest suburban Huntley were taken aback when a man showed up at a Village Board meeting last month and announced he wants to open a warehouse in town to grow marijuana.

"Did you bring any samples?" one of the trustees joked.

Samuel Franzmann has no background in the medical marijuana business. But the Batavia man, who works in information technology for an orthopedics clinic, said he has run a small business before, has investors and is very serious.

Jokes aside, village officials in Huntley were decidedly less enthusiastic.

"At this point, the village doesn't have any interest in the proposal," Village Manager Dave Johnson said. "There are no regulations in place as we sit here to accommodate the use. … The likelihood of it ending up here — there may be better spots (elsewhere)."

A measure that would bring medical marijuana to Illinois is a signature away from becoming law, and Gov. Pat Quinn has indicated he's "very open-minded" about the concept.

And though the proposed law wouldn't take effect until Jan. 1 — with further delays likely as various regulatory issues are sorted out — would-be entrepreneurs in state, as well as those who operate medicinal marijuana businesses in the 19 states where it's legal, are already angling to get in on the potential new market.

That has left some communities scrambling to figure out — sometimes grudgingly — how to accommodate marijuana dispensaries or cultivation operations in their towns, should anyone seek to open them. Legalized pot could also have implications for local police departments, whose officers would have to make new distinctions between those who could legally possess pot and the rest of the populace for whom it would remain illegal.

Experts say the law may have a host of consequences, intended and otherwise, for residents, customers, businesses and police, that will have to be worked out through regulation and, in some cases, litigation.

If the bill as written becomes law, adults who have one of more than 40 specific "debilitating medical conditions" — cancer, multiple sclerosis or severe fibromyalgia among them — could legally buy up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

The proposal would allow for 22 enclosed marijuana-growing warehouses and 60 marijuana dispensaries to be geographically distributed around Illinois. State agencies would issue patient identification cards and would license and regulate the grow facilities and dispensaries.

Local governments would not be able to ban such facilities outright but could pass zoning regulations to restrict where they could go.

In anticipation of the law, the Lake County Municipal League plans a seminar July 18 addressing how to handle the issue. Several suburbs, including Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Carpentersville, Deerfield, Highland Park and Libertyville, have taken preliminary steps to determine where marijuana facilities could locate.

Grayslake and Mundelein officials plan to hold public hearings within 120 days of the law going into effect to determine how to square marijuana facilities with the village's zoning code.

Fox Lake took steps to limit marijuana facilities to its manufacturing areas, away from the downtown and residential areas.

"No one on the board is opposed to medical marijuana," Mayor Donny Schmit said. "Everybody knows someone who's had cancer or suffered eye disease. We just wanted an area where (suspicious) traffic would be noticed."

Any such facility would be a special use, meaning officials could add specific requirements, like extra security or cameras, as they did with a gun shop in the village.

The proposed Illinois law would limit access to medical marijuana to patients 18 and older. Marijuana facilities would have to be at least 1,000 feet from schools, and smoking marijuana would be forbidden in public places and motor vehicles.

Andy Duran, executive director of the nonprofit Linking Efforts Against Drugs, doesn't believe that goes far enough in preventing new avenues for teens' access. Hehas lobbied Lake Forest and Lake Bluff to restrict marijuana facilities to the outskirts of town.

"Do you want your home next to a marijuana dispensary?" he said. "I wouldn't. At least our communities would be protected to the fullest extent we can."

However the zoning issues play out, marijuana regulators and advocates in Colorado say the Illinois law is far more restrictive and avoids many of the problems that came up there after the medical marijuana business took off in 2009.

Lewis Koski, chief of investigations for Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division, said it would be much easier for Illinois to enforce regulations on a limited number of preapproved facilities, rather than the hundreds of dealers that sprang up without regulation after Colorado voters approved medical marijuana.

And limiting patients to those with a legitimate doctor-patient relationship and specific medical conditions should eliminate the catchall "chronic pain" diagnosis that opened the floodgates to use in California and Colorado.

"It sounds to me like Illinois is doing a lot of things right," Koski said. "If you want to legalize medical marijuana, it sounds like they've made some really good decisions on the front end."

On the business end, prospective entrepreneurs are hoping to cash in on the "green rush" in Illinois.

The National Cannabis Industry Association will hold a Midwest CannaBusiness Symposium in Chicago in August. Admission will cost $375 at the door and include a networking reception to bring together investors and people with marijuana-growing experience.

Kayvan Khalatbari, founder and co-owner of the medical marijuana firm Denver Relief, will speak at the symposium. His firm is acting as a consultant to businesses in Illinois, and he figures it will take at least $1 million to open a production warehouse.

Khalatbari predicted Illinois will need more grow centers. He estimated the 22 proposed centers would be overloaded by serving almost 12,000 patients each.

Faced with the possibility of enforcing the new law, police and others have warned of unwanted consequences. While the Illinois State Police took no position on the proposal, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois Sheriffs' Association oppose the measure, which they estimate will lead to 250,000 users.

In a letter to the governor, the policing groups said the proposal would prevent convictions for driving violations based on blood tests for medical marijuana card-holders and would instead force police to find the driver was impaired based on a field sobriety test, which they say would make officers' jobs harder.

The sponsor of the bill to legalize medicinal pot, state Rep. Lou Lang, a Democrat from Skokie, said blood tests may pick up residual marijuana from days or weeks before, which may mean the driver is not still impaired, so the proposed law would make field sobriety tests mandatory. Drivers who refuse the test could lose their licenses.

Law-enforcement groups have also questioned the 2.5-ounce biweekly pot maximum allowable under the Illinois proposal. They say that's more than is needed for medical purposes and worry that the surplus will end up in the illegal street market.

While the debate rages on, patients are anxiously hoping that the governor signs the bill into law.

Katherine Rasmussen, of north suburban Hainesville, a former parent-teacher organization president who said she is undergoing chemotherapy for lupus and multiple sclerosis, has tried numerous medications, and said marijuana is the only thing that helps her keep food down.

In May, she was charged with misdemeanor possession of cannabis while trying to enter a Waukegan courthouse for a hearing involving a former PTO officer.

"I have a whole bunch of legal prescription drugs that are much worse for my body," Rasmussen said. "But if you get caught with the tiniest bit of marijuana, they treat you like a common criminal."

Jim Champion, a 46-year-old veteran with multiple sclerosis who lives in Somonauk, about 65 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, spoke on behalf of the bill to lawmakers in Springfield.

He said traditional medications like morphine and Valium knocked him out in the middle of conversations, stole his appetite and left him like a "zombie." He maintains that marijuana has stopped the trembling, pain and constrictions in his limbs, and helped him eat again.

Champion looks forward to the day his wife, Sandy, doesn't have to buy his supply on the street in dicey locations.

"Many people much sicker than myself are depending on this," he said. "It's an exclusive club, but one you don't want to be in."